My Letter To Hillary Clinton

I think you have done yourself and those of us on the autistic spectrum a great disservice by aligning yourself with the group “Autism Speaks.” I know of several thousand people that you snubbed in that one action. There is an online community for people on the high functioning end of autism at Wrong Planet that is nearly 16 thousand people strong, and most of them are anti-cure.

Autism Speaks, as you must know, is pro-cure. They are anti-neurodiversity and those of us who identify as such. They think that if you are not “normal,” then that makes you less than human in some way. Autism Speaks is responsible for hate ads against autism, displaying it as something seen only in the worst possible light and as a potentially hopeless future.

I don’t understand how you can be open minded about gay rights, and yet close minded about neurodiversity rights. I would have voted for you if you had not sided with the enemy, the very people supporting our extermination. You know, they think that Einstein, Thomas Edison, Mozart and Leonardo da Vinci were all on the autistic spectrum somewhere.

Instead of embracing what makes humans diverse, you have promised to combat it. How about working to combat bullying in schools? Did you know that it is estimated that 90-100% of kids with some form of autism are bullied in schools? Nearly 100% bullied. Where’s the coverage for that?

Did you know that people on the spectrum are less likely to judge others on the color of their skin, sexual orientation or gender? That’s something to combat? Most people with Asperger’s Syndrome have either normal IQ or above normal, oftentimes running into the genius range.

How about the thousands of autistic people who have been institutionalized just because they couldn’t communicate in the “normally accepted way”? How do you feel about the Deaf community; should they be fixed too?

Or are you going to take the traditional view of the past:

It’s your fault for being odd; you brought this on yourself. Thus, the people who prejudice, those who vehemently hate people who are different from they, the bullies who triumph in almost every setting, are absolved of all fault; once again teaching the next generation that hate is acceptable and tolerance is not. Will you be part of this right to hate, or will you stand up for the rights of those who have never been stood up for? We have been let down so many times by people who should have kept us safe; people in authority who were supposedly there to help us; people older and supposedly wiser than us, who turned a blind eye to our pain at the hands of other people who were justified because they were “normal” and we were not.

9 Responses to “My Letter To Hillary Clinton”

Wow. I’m so glad I stumbled across this site. I’m fascinated by the idea of neuro-diversity; I think ALL humans are on not just one spectrum but several. The discrimination against those with autism and Asperger’s grieves me.

I would only suggest that the cure-focused organizations really aren’t your enemy. They play a role in helping create a forum for parents of autistic kids, especially those with severe disabilities.

Your real enemy is ignorance and a public insistence on the black-white, sick-well paradigm in understanding human behavior and talents.

Anyway, congratulations on this site. I’ll look forward to returning and reading more.

Johnstodderinexile – I’m not actually against the parents of those involved in Autism Speaks, nor the creation of a community it creates for those parents, but rather the one-sided nature of the picture it poses for autism and the future of those with autism. I’m actually friends with several people on Autism Speaks’s bulletin board. Nice folks. And I’m doing my best to present my POV in a logical, rational and mediating manner; which in turn, people respect me for.

Autism Speaks is just a tangible place to point towards in terms of ignorance and the sick/well belief for people. They’re just my starting place. 🙂 Wherever I go, if I can somehow bring up the autism spectrum AND find a way to positively explain it, then I do. The other day, I taught my entire dentist’s office about it.

Thanks for visiting. I appreciate your words and view and hope you come back again.

isn’t it just AMAZING (or actually unbelievable) that people think they’re doing the right thing because they have no clue? it’s like how the White House held a big special olympics torch run on ADA Day (instead of recognizing the disability rights movement). they couldn’t pick any other day… ?

Quote of the month, year or galactic standard week (whichever comes first):

"To be 'sociable' - to talk merely because convention forbids silence, to rub against one another in order to create the illusion of intimacy and contact: what an example of la condition humaine. Exhausting, naturally, like any improper use of our spiritual resources. In miniature, one of the many ways in which mankind successfully acts as its own scourge--in the hell of spiritual death." - Dag Hammarskjöld; translated from Swedish by Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden.